Reshaped by a culture?

For whatever reason one ends up in living overseas they need to ditch what was normal for them and incorporate new things into life whether they like it or not. Some seem to almost frantically replicate their home countries by eating the same food, dressing the same and kitting your house out the same and doing the same activities. While it is understandable to respect their heritage I think they will miss out a lot by seeking too much what you know in a different place.

There are things, of course, that I miss about the country where I grew up. I did and still do, however, the best I could to acculturate and broaden my horizon. I recently realize that how one adapts to a culture and respond accordingly. It is really obvious but you don’t see it until you find yourself in a different culture. Things that are normal in one country are considered to be rude in another country. Slurping food for instance, I was completely oblivious to the sound when I was in Japan and it never occurred to me someone might be raising their eye brows or be disgusted. I have to admit that I was still oblivious to it a few years after I had moved to South Africa. But one day, a friend of mine was nice enough to point my slurping out. Sometimes it is not easy to point things like that out to someone since they might not like being pointed out. But I really appreciate it now. Or I would be still slurping it away.

Since then I made a conscious effort not to slurp and now I don’t even think about it. My mouth are sealed while eating. I did so out of politeness at first. But now that I don’t slurp I notice it when someone does it and that makes me so uncomfortable. I was so surprised, almost amazed that I responded that way. I must have been the biggest slurper in Japan but after living in a country for 10 years where it is considered to be impolite to slurp I not only notice it but I squirm for it. I am sure if I go back to Japan I will get used back to it again before long but I bet it takes some time. Another example is that when I look at a woman. I find myself looking at where I had not interested in. I don’t do it obviously and creepily in a harassing way. All in a range of appreciation. I don’t know if it is making any sense… These are just pretty lame examples I don’t think they have made a ground breaking change in me.

How many more and in what aspect have I changed this way? I honestly don’t know. There seem to be changes I am conscious and unconscious about. I don’t even quite remember how I did things 10 years ago differently. I remember shaking hands and hugging when meeting people but how often, was it only when it was special, did I ask to pass me the salt instead of thrusting my hand in front of the guy next to me? It is not I moved overseas when I was little in which case it would be totally natural to be reshaped but I was mid 20s.

On another a bit more serious note, I was also very much oblivious to racism. Even the concept of racism was foreign to me. Japan is a very homogenous country I didn’t have any non Japanese friend. I was, well put it positively, innocent. But here in South Africa it is almost impossible to not feel it first hand or second hand. It is a lot about black and white (Asian, what they call coloured, Indian, etc) to the point where it is annoying often. It is darn politically correct. Some people turn just about everything into a racism matter which has made me sensitive to it. Worst, it has made me self conscious about it. While I know I am colour blind as I was in Japan I have to admit I have been affected by their sensitivity. Does racism mean one has unfair opinions on a certain race merely and utterly on grounds of the skin colour or more on a cultural thing? The former is way too shallow to even begin to comprehend.
I like to believe all this is a learning process for me and helps expand my horizon further tho..
Do you at all feel moulded by a different culture?

Are good old friends still in your heart?

I don’t know how long you have been an expat. 1 year, 3years, 5 year, 10 years, 20 years or more.

I left my parent’s place after finishing the high school and moved to a big city by crossing the sea (my home town is a small island a two hour ferry away from the main island). From then on everyone went their way, i.e. starting a job, going to college. It is inevitable that one has to leave the island to go to college coz there is none on the island and hardly no jobs.

I myself also found a social life totally different from the one I had in my village.  Ever since then I had only seen my fellow inland duddies when I went back during the school holidays. Over years I had gone back to the island less and less often as I adept to the city life. But the ties we had from growing up together was so strong every time I saw them I saw them like I had seen them a week earlier.

After high school, good or bad, we all had grown up in different cities having different friends and hardly seen each other. But there was something fundamentally communally warm that connects us together.

Although it is entirely possible that I was the only one who felt that way. Or only feeling that way in retrospect.

The longer I am away from where I was born the less in touch I have been with the place and friend thereof. Email, facebook can only go so far. Now I have few people I keep in touch with besides my family.

Two years ago I went back to my island in Japan for the first time in 5 years. I visited my old friends’ works without any notice, whom I never kept in touch all these years. I just struck a surprise attack one by one (Funny that a lot of people come back to the island after spending some years in a big city for whatever reasons). Most of them are married with some kids now.

We are living a totally different life and there is nothing in common but still we saw each other like we did a week before. no untimely questions but mainly focusing on right there and right then. I don’t even get bombarded by questions what I was up to in Africa. I would whisk back to when I was 12.

Here I am in Africa so far away from the island and I don’t keep in touch with them at all, but occasionally out of completely nowhere, they just pop into my head and make me wonder how they are doing and I have a 3000 mile stare momentarily. Very weird.

Do you still have good old friends in your heart who you grew up together?

Twitter

Del.icio.us

How often do you call?

Each person might have a story to tell how he or she has ended up in being an expat. You may have chosen it or you may not, it may have been imposed upon you or there was not any other choice but moving.　Whatever case it might be if you still have families in your home country how often do you connect and how?

In my case, the first few years I seldom called my parents, maybe once every few months and one time I didn’t call them for about six months or more and they were not at all impressed when I called. Please don’t get me wrong, I do care about them and love them however meaningless it may sound to you when I say this. Meanwhile I had been emailing my brother often so they must’ve known I was not dead. They didn’t call me either so I am not entirely the one to blame. Chances are they wouldn’t have known how to make an international call anyway though.

Now I realize that the best I can do is call them and let them know I am doing well. so I call them monthly. I don’t go on to tell what life is like in Africa coz they don’t ask. All they want and need to know is how I am doing and all I like to know is they are well. so the conversation only lasts a few minutes max.

I always say I am well and everything is cool even when it is clearly not and I am hungry and sick because I don’t wanna make them worried. I get the sense they might be doing the same for me. I know they care about me. and that means a lot. My father once said to me “Watch out for landmines.” As far as I know there ain’t any landmines in South Africa. But I said “I will”.

I even think if I start calling them weekly they would wonder what’s gotten into our son, and start worrying. Many things I want to ask them and tell them but I feel like those are not suited to be told on the phone. Maybe the next time I see them. And I am not good at talking on the phone anyway. The more intimate I know the person on the other side of the phone the more I feel the phone does do much for men to really connect. but still that is the best option and cheapest.

I have never used or needed skype.

My parents don’t call me but I got the hand written letters from them a few time. They didn’t post them. what they did was they wrote a letter and took it to a home appliance shop around the corner from my folks place. The shop owner is an electrician in the village and my mother and he went to the same school. I mean at the same time, they all go to the same schools anyway coz there are only a few. and then the electrician scans the letter and emails me with an attachment of a flipping big size on my side. It is more personal and warm for sure though than if they had emailed.

How do you keep in touch, if you do that is, with your parents, spouse, children, grand parents, brothers and sisters? What do you talk about and how long?

I am sure I am not the only one feeling the way I mentioned above.

Twitter

Del.icio.us

Open horizons

One of the many great things about seeing and living other countries is that you feel the beauty of diversity first hand in your bone and you really start appreciating how we are all in this together on the planet. The more you see the more of a dimension you add to mind, you become more open minded and tolerant.

There are a lot of people who hardly ever leave their home and lead uneventful life. I am not at all again it. My parent is like that, living in a village on a fairly small island where I grew. They are perfectly happy. It was only a few years ago that my mum went overseas for the first time, overseas, right next door to their island only a few hour ferry away. And that was not quite for fun but something like a field trip.

Not for me. I would like to see other places and meet people. The actual seeing and feeling with the first hand sensation is crucial for me to approximating what is out there of a sheer pleasure that I can get out of travelling, so fundamental and sustainable that I hope to draw good feelings from whenever I need it, not only chasing quick entertainments for fun which i think is ok and we all need them to a degree.

I don’t think one necessarily needs to adapt to different ways of things people do but what is important is you become aware of it. And that should not be in the tone of judging but accepting as they are. If you judge them, you inevitably judge yourself. You cannot judge others on one scale and you yourself on another. If you could it means you are a supa self-centred spinelessly narrow-minded jerk. And that is not the way to go.

Studying overseas, marrying, a job offered, an extended period of backpacking, for whatever reason one has ended up abroad, one can take advantage of this opportunity to see directly through your own visual cortex with nothing in between. Reading adventure books and watching national geographic is fun and you can get vicarious satisfaction but never the first hand sensation that gets in your blood.

What is equally vital is keep mind’s eyes open. Many people tend to fall prey to thinking, when they come across something foreign, that it is strange and just write it off. If mind is closed you only see what you expect to see. Like a horse with a blinker on, you just go after what you are after and cannot see in peripheral visions which, more often than that, are things you do not want to miss out, filled with adventure.

To Huddle or Not to Huddle

I had been fantasizing about going overseas one day and living there. One of the reasons I moved to South Africa is that there seemed to be no many people from where I was from, namely Japan. I had never been overseas till mid 20’s when I finally set my food on African continent, which, for a Japanese, is rather unusual given they like travelling and taking photos.

I had read articles and watched clips of some TV Program over and over of people talking about how wonderful time they had and I indulged in daydreams. Oh how badly was I longing for crossing the ocean…

It’s not that it didn’t matter which country. It did. It had to be an English speaking country since learning the language was one of my prime reasons. I knew that the people in the articles and clips I kept at hand for indulgence did not represent the majority.

I heard so many stories of people who went overseas to learn a language, experience its culture, cross the frontiers or just look for something just to end up not doing so. After spending for a few months to a year or even two, they came back without having learnt the language and much difference in their outlook.

Why? Because they hung out with people who shared the same language and even maybe eating the same food, watching the same television and doing the same as back home. I am not saying it is wrong or anything It was just not for me. I am sure they had fun in their ways but to me it was a waste of time. I could not afford to go down that path.

Having said that, I am not sure if I could have resisted the temptation. It is likely I would have done the same if I had gone to a country like America, a city like Los Angeles where you could pick up Japanese take aways, dvds and books and bump into Japanese around each corner (I’ve never been there but I am sure I am not very wrong).

It seems hard to discipline youself and stick to the initial purposes you are after, when you don’t know the language, had no ideas how things work and start to feel lonely. And then there are waters you swam before, it is so easy to dive right in.

I knew that the last thing I wanted was go down the path. I did not quite know how not to fall victim to it but I just thought I could make a plan when I got there.

It was then that I stumbled upon South Africa. To be honest, I did not know anything about it and I did not even know the people spoke English in South Africa. I was still sceptical about it even when I touched down in Cape Town.

Now it has been 10 years and leaving Japan for South Africa was one of the best and boldest move I have taken. Not only is Cape Town pretty but also it made me expose to the local and help me acculturate so much. the progress, if any, would have been significantly slower if I had gone to America, England, Australia or one of those popular countries among Japanese.

It was by no means easy. I did study English but I could not speak or understand other people. It is insanely frustrating not to be able to express yourself. But I had to force myself into learning it as no one spoke Japanese.

If you speak the language, say, South Africans going to England, things seem to be a whole lot easier than Asians goings to England. Even so, I heard a lot of South Africans stick together in England despite the fact they have no problems in terms of communicating verbally.

It is totally understandable. They herd, share information, help each other because they feel more comfortable with things that are familiar. It would be even more so if you are sent there by your company for six months or a year when you did not wish. But what if you cross the border with burning passions for adventure of walking into the unknown and sucking the marrow, but find yourself struggling to communicate your way in.

I think it’s so easy to compromise and spend more and more time with your people. A funny thing is that those people are not even the type of people you normally hang out with back home but you still do. It is better than feeling isolated.

Luckily I did not have to succumb to that. I did not have a choice so I have to find a way to survive. It was, like I said, not easy. I actually don’t know how to avoid getting into the pattern. I am not even sure you can or should avoid entirely. It is good to share useful information among them on how to get around in a different country.

The more you are on your own the more you learn but tougher and the more at stake to emotionally burn out. The more you huddle the less you learn and miss out one of the most fantastically rewarding experiences, worse and this is more likely you learn little and worst you become ethnocentric.

What do you think about huddling with whom you share the same culture in a different country when you know you are there to learn and broaden your mind? I think one needs to somehow find the balance in between making the best of living overseas and still socialising with the same nationality. After a while you will learn more and gain more skills, eventually you drift away from them, or you might be with them if you will.

Where on earth do you live?

1999 today 12 November I set my foot on African continent and I have lived ever since. 10 years.. I have never lived so long before anywhere in one place except an island where I grew up on, yet I feel like the 10 years just zipped by so quickly. I had never left the country before I came to Africa. I lived on the small island till I was eighteen as opposed to living in a big city inundated, for good or bad, with information. So leaving the island was quite a thing for me and could not even have imagined that one day I would live overseas. Plus I could not speak a word of English to begin with.

Anyway here I am in Africa. I do feel like I am more of an African now so I hesitate to use the word “expat” and I am almost always unaware of it except a few occasions such as the election that reminds me of actually not a citizen, I do not have a vote. But just for the heck of it and to commemorate my anniversary I would like to look at things from being an expat and also in hope of connecting to other expats across the world, sharing the experience  from tough to awesome ones and helping become more acculturate, open-minded and evolve.

I live in Cape Town, South Africa where there are many skin colures, 11 official languages and more cultures. So people are supposed to respect each other to live in harmony. They is a variety of people and that is one of many I like about Cape Town. I was born and “bred” in Japan where there is one skin colour, one language, one culture. To be honest, I did not quite feel aligned with the general public when I was in Japan and once the idea of going overseas to see another world beyond the ocean hit me it increasingly grew and I longed for it so badly.

Things we do in where we are born are so normal they are invisible to us. People go to countries for a holiday but it is rare to intensely experience the culture with the first hand sensation so we don’t have a chance to see them really in contrast. But once you experience you perceive, consciously or not, that it is not the only way, it works this way or that way too that makes you more tolerant and flexible. That leads to a whole range of elements we can discuss in terms of languages, relocation, belongingness, aloneness, interculture, visa etc. I am interested to hear about what it is like to live overseas for you and your advices.

This is kinda introduction. I like to bring up a topic for each post.

Twitter
Del.icio.us

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!